In the News (Sun 4 Dec 16)

NAWABSHAH, May 11: The government of Sindh has sought proposals to divide the taluka of Nawabshah and asked the officials of the district government to submit related information, sources said.

Taluka Nawabshah, having a population of approximately 600,000, is a stronghold of the People’s Party Parliamentarians (PPP) from where PPP secured three provincial seats i.e.

Nawabshah city, which is a part of taluka with nine union councils, is supposed to be a stronghold of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement, which was keenly interested in its division into three talukas i.e.

www.dawn.com /2005/05/12/nat25.htm (430 words)

The Jamestown Foundation(Site not responding. Last check: 2007-11-05)

The Nawabshah incident, in this account, is a stage-managed affair, which may have been intended not only to keep up the ‘tempo' of success against the militants, but also to silence embarrassment at the level of involvement of the lower echelons of the military in the failed assassination attempts on President Musharraf.

Security officials at the scene in Nawabshah were reported to be furious that he was shot dead, since he could also have provided vital information on the killing of Daniel Pearl.

Stage-managed or not, the Nawabshah confrontation is an interesting marker of the level the conflict has reached.

Nawabshah Industrial Estate was also in the pipeline and the budget was also sanctioned but it was scrapped during Nawaz Sharif's tenure in 1997.

There is terrible poverty and unemployment in Nawabshah which is directly associated with a shortage of irrigation water and the fact that the youth of our country are failing to get employment because of the lack of investment in industry and other sectors.

The people of Nawabshah have been acutely affected by this situation, especially farmers on small holdings whose subsistence depends on their crops and the few cattle they own.

Nawabshah (Urdu: نوابشاہ) city (established in 1912) is located in the centre of Sindh,Along With Left Bank Of River Indus Near Sakrand Tehsel, Pakistan, and is therefore often known as the Heart of Sindh.

Nawabshah is famous for sugarcane and banana production; its climate is hot and dry.

Habib College of Technology, Nawabshah, the Polytechnic Institute affiliated with the Sindh Board of Technical Education Karachi.

NAWABSHAH, SINDH: [Sindh Today Special Report] The old and senior people of Nawabshah, Sindh still remember the tragic massacre of an India - bound passengers train which soon after leaving Nawabshah Railway Station, was attacked after Partition (early 1948) and almost all its passengers (except young girls who were kidnapped) were massacred as planned.

It was reported the mastermind behind the plan was the then Collector of Nawabshah namely Masud - a Punjabi bureaucrat who was later known as 'Masud Khadarposh'.

I categorically still remember that about 50-60 families of Sindhi Sikhs (Labaanaa living in Gharibabad Mohalla of Nawabshah town) were leaving from Nawabshah railway station to Jodhpur (India) through Raja Line (train with small gauge).

Nawabshah --- A local journalist was kidnapped and tortured by some influential landlords of Sakrand on Wednesday.

According to reports, Adam Jamali, a reporter of a vernacular daily and a president of the Sarhari press club, was taking tea at a hotel on the Sakrand-Sarhari link road when four armed persons kidnapped him at gunpoint.

Meanwhile, journalists of Nawabshah strongly condemned the incident and demanded from the Sindh government to ensure justice.

NAWABSHAH: Two bombs went off one after another on a Railway line in Nawabshah, which severely damaged the railway tracks, reports said.

At least three persons including two police officials were injured in two consecutive powerful blasts occurred at the main railway track near Nawabshah railway station Monday evening.

Railway and police sources say, two consecutive blasts rocked the railway tracked and two pieces of track measuring about 1.5 feet each were blown off by the blasts at about 2 kilometer away from the railway station at up side outer signal.

pakistantimes.net /2004/08/17/top3.htm (296 words)

News(Site not responding. Last check: 2007-11-05)

Air blue has started flights to Nawabshah twice a week from February and is trying to facilitate the people of Nawabshah with air services, where no private airlines operated due to financial losses.

Air blue under its Child Enrichment Programme took the students of four different private and NGO schools of the City to Nawabshah on a short trip to give them chance to enjoy the air journey.

The students after reaching Nawabshah Airport had a round of the aero plane with Air blue official Nida Khan who told them about the aircraft and gave interesting information.

Mr Ahsanullah Gondal, a former SSP of Nawabshah City, said while recording his statement before a judicial magistrate in the plane hijacking case, that the then IG, Mr Rana Maqbool, had ordered him to arrest the army chief as soon as the PIA plane landed at the Nawabshah airport.

He said when the Chief Operation Officer at the Karachi air control informed that the pilot of the plane was asking for permission to land due to shortage of fuel, the DG, CAA, emphasised: "It is an order of the Prime Minister not to allow the plane to land anywhere in Pakistan".

Later, when the DG was told of the gravity of the situation, he allowed the plane to land at Nawabshah, 200 km north of Karachi which is considered an alternative airport to the port city.

NAWABSHAH, Sept 26: An alleged terrorist, who was later identified as an Al Qaeda kingpin Amjad Farooqi, was killed and seven other people, including two women and three children, were arrested after security forces raided a house in Ghulam Hyder Shah Colony here on Sunday.

A security official in Islamabad said that Farooqi, 30, and his accomplices put up "very strong" resistance, firing at security officials with automatic weapons from inside their hideout in Nawabshah.

President Musharraf had named Farooqi as the "Pakistani mastermind" of the Dec 25 assassination plot on his convoy by two suicide bombers who rammed their explosives-laden vehicles close to presidential motorcade, leaving more than a dozen people dead.

Three suspects were arrested at dawn in Sukkur, a town close to Nawabshah town in southern Pakistan, Pakistani officials said.

Pakistani intelligence sources said that security forces gathered enough information from material at the scene and from the two men arrested in Sunday’s shootout when Farooqi was killed, as well as from earlier telephone taps, to launch a fresh campaign of arrests.

Farooqi's aides in Nawabshah — named as Abdul Rehman and Yaqoob Farooqi -- had provided important leads during the interrogation, the government sources said.

NAWABSHAH: More than 22,000 residents of 55 riverine villages of the Nawabshah district were asked on Wednesday to shift to safer places in view of the expected high flood.

He said a super flood had passed through the limits of the Nawabshah district in the past without causing any major damage, but the Sindh government has taken precautionary measures to protect the people living in the riverine area.

Khokhar said a police force, telephone and electricity supply has been arranged at three sensitive sites while medical camps for animals has also been established.

He said Zardari is a politician and the United States government might confer him benefit of doubt, thus he will not be arrested.

Apart from other cases Zardari was declared a proclaimed offender in the BMW case and orders were issued to confiscate his property in Hyderabad, Nawabshah and Sanghar.

The confiscated property includes 98 acres and five marlas of agricultural land in Preetamabad, Sanghar; two acres in Nawabshah; nine acres and 14 marlas in Deh Rohuki; 39 acres and 15 marlas in Deh Deliwadi, and a plot in the Nawabshah Cooperative Housing Society.

NAB on Wednesday announced that it has confiscated 148 acres of land and several other properties of Asif Ali Zardari, following a court order.

District Coordination Officers of Nawabshah, Sanghar and Hyderabad in Sindh province have confiscated Zardari's properties as ordered last month by Accountability Court of Rawalpindi, the NAB announcement said.

Ninety-eight acres of agricultural land in Sanghar, nine acres in Hyderabad, 39 acres agricultural land in Deh Deliwadi, Hyderabad, 2 acres agricultural land in Nawabshah and plot in Cooperative Society, Nawabshah have also been confiscated, the NAB press release said.